


Rage, Rage Against The Dying Of The Light

by The_Best_Guesst



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: David Tennant is just a super amazing actor I love him, End Of Time Part 2, Episode: s04e18 The End of Time (2), Hurt, Pain, Regeneration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-04-17 13:41:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14190201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Best_Guesst/pseuds/The_Best_Guesst
Summary: Feels re: The End Of Time Pt. 2. So, spoiler warning for that episode. The Doctor's perspective of the end of Ten's time onscreen. Crossposted on FFN. It's better than the summary is, I promise.





	1. Do Not Go Gentle Into that Good Night

**Author's Note:**

> 1,002 words, written between the hours of 11pm and 1am. Wish I could write essays that fast. Anywho, I just, really needed to write something, and this popped into my head and wouldn't leave me alone until I rewatched the end of the episode and cried my eyes out and wrote this. I've written about this episode before, but not as a story. I'll post that other thing as a second chapter to this, but it needs heavy editing. I tend to write late at night/early in the morning, so things aren't always coherent.  
> So, on with the show.

He-he's alive.

He's still  _alive_.

He's alive!

It's over and he's still alive. It's not his time to die yet. Relief floods through him and he half sobs, half laughs, still on the floor where he fell. Nothing matters anymore, he's  _ALIVE!_

_... _

*Knock-knock-knock-knock*

...

No.

...

*Knock-knock-knock-knock*

...

No!

...

*Knock-knock-knock-knock*

...

This wasn't supposed to happen!

...

*Knock-knock-knock-knock*

...

He had  _won_.

He had won and now  _this_  had to happen.

Wilf. Dear old Wilf. Dear, kind, old Wilf. Too kind. Or maybe, The Doctor wasn't kind enough anymore.

Even now, looking straight into the face of death, Wilf is too selfless. The Doctor is too selfish. He doesn't want to die, not yet.

But he has to step up to receive his 'reward'.

Huh. Some reward it turned out to be.

He can't bottle up his rage any more. The indescribable inferno of undirected rage at the universe rises up and pours forth and it feels so good to let it all out, but The Doctor knows. He has to gather himself together. He almost smirks as a quote runs through his head, "Rage, rage against the dying of the light." Too fitting.

Collected once more, he approaches the booth, approaches his next death. He really has spent too long in this body. A fresh start will do him some good. But even as he knows that it is the right thing to do, he forces legs of stone to keep moving, to keep bringing him closer to that glass box of death.

But then, he reasons, it is only fitting to die in sacrifice. That's what this life had too much of, might as well overdose and die on sacrifice. And so he continues to move.

Wilf, the oh-so-important Wilf, the man who was better by nature than The Doctor could ever hope to be, was trying to get him to stop and save himself. That, more than anything else, helped The Doctor's stone legs feel a little lighter, made it easier to pretend to be alright. Everything was okay. He's always okay.

He steps in the booth, he making sure that Wilf would hurry, and quickly releases the lock on Wilf's door. He can't see if Wilf made it out alright because immediately there is pain.

PainpainpainpaINPAINPAINPAINPAIN

The radiation cuts through him like a wide beam laser, tearing him apart cell by cell. He can feel it, feel himself dying, feel the radiation warping and denaturing everything inside him. He's dying and he is in pain, and he is alone.

So lonely. His enemynemisisFRIEND used up his dying life force to send back gallifreyplanetHOME and it was gone. It's all gone. They are all gone. And The Doctor is alone.

The white-hot needles of pain lancing through him are too much. He can't stand. He can't think. He curls up on the floor of the booth, grabbing at his hair to try to distract him from the mass of pain that is his body.

The radiation shuts off but The Doctor doesn't notice. He can't think of anything more than pain at the moment, but the pain is starting to ebb. Not much, but he can bear it now. He slowly uncurls from the ground, remembering Wilf. He looks up at the older-looking man.

Wilf gives a tentative, "Hello."

The Doctor knows that he has to say something to keep Wilf from worrying too much, so he pushes past the pain and manages a rough, "Hi."

Getting more of a handle on the pain, The Doctor proceeds to stand, a part of his brain not keeping down the pain or focusing on wobbly muscles explaining that he had absorbed all the radiation to Wilf. Pushing the door open he feels a stab of frustration. Why couldn't the door be that easy to open just a minute ago?

Wilf doesn't know. He thinks that since The Doctor was up and walking, he must be alive. But The Doctor knows. Knows that he is a dead man walking. Wilf starts to get that as the wounds on The Doctor's face heal up, as The Doctor utters a simple, "It's started."

From there, it starts to blur together. He saves Micky and Martha, and from the looks on their faces, they know that he's living on borrowed time. He runs up and saves Luke, the son of his Sarah Jane Smith. She too can see that he's going soon, but she just gives him a soft smile. He needed that. He gives a winning lottery ticket to Donna, to help her live her normal life. He sets up Jack and Alonzo. Now he can see  _her_.

He didn't mean to make a noise, but the pain welled up unexpectedly and he couldn't stop the small grunt that escaped him. At least he can talk to her, one last time.

It's a heartbreakingly short conversation, and he can hardly concentrate on it. As soon as  _she_ is out of sight, his grip on the pain weakens. He knows he hast to get to the TARDIS, it's the only safe place for him to regenerate, especially now that he held it back for so long. The pain is nearly unbearable. He wonders if this might be his final death, if he can't get to the TARDIS in time. He almost doesn't.

The Ood knows. The Ood helps, as it conveys the universe's song to The Doctor. It gives him just enough strength to reach the old wooden box. Just enough strength to get away from anyone who might get hurt.

As he can finally safely regenerate, he still holds on. He knows he is dying, he knows he has to change, but

** "I don't want to go." **

 


	2. Character Study

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here is that other thing I was talking about. It was written between the hours of 4am and 5am. I tried to edit it... Also, small spoilers for Waters of Mars.  
> Anyways, it's basically a "I love David Tennant's acting so flipping much, here is why he's amazing" study of the last few episodes of season 4. Yes, I am a Ten fangirl, but I like him for much more than his looks. Read below to see why he's so amazing.

I love David Tennant so much because he can be all cute and nice and dorky and funny, but he can also be sad, and angry and scary and villainous. He has such a wide range of emotions and that is what makes him so good. Other actors always do happy and funny or sad and angry but usually not straying outside of what they are good at.

David Tennant as the Doctor was really nice and funny, with some sad moments, but those sad moments made him kind. Then as time went on, he became more cynical and bitter and the sad moments just made him angsty, not kind. He got worse when a companion left, but then the next made him better. Then, when he needed one most, there was no companion to stop him and he crossed the line. He tried to take time into his own hands and be a god.

Luckily, he had a person there to remind him of what he should be, what he needs to be, even at the sacrifice of her own life. When she kills herself, it's a wake-up call to the Doctor that not all of his decisions are the right ones. And so he runs away. He knows that he will die soon, but he tries to postpone it as long as possible. But when he eventually faces it, he finds that he's still not ready, despite all the mistakes and dark feelings, he's not ready to die.

David Tennant really portrays it well. When he's talking to Wilf in the café, there is a brief moment of lost composure, but it is quickly buried. Also, in that scene, all I can see is a father and son, perhaps helped by the conversation in the spaceship where the Doctor says "I'd be proud… if you were my dad" and I can see that he is relying on Wilf as a sort of father, even though he's hundreds of years older than him.

Then in the final scene after the Doctor oscillates between killing the Master or Rassilon, which was also very intense and we all thought that the Doctor was going to use a gun on someone for the first time, we see his relief at being alive. That little half-sob, half-laugh and huff of "I made it, I'm still alive" fades as he hears the four knocks and it turns to horror. Then there is that little smile when Wilf says "Just leave me". The Doctor already knows that he won't leave Wilf. Prophesy or not, he feels he has a duty to save him, even at the cost of his own life. That's what that smile means.

Then he goes through his rant of being more important than Wilf, and rants against the unfairness of death so soon after his big victory, calling it his reward. Then he stops and thinks about what he just said and how it goes against all his morals and realizes "I've lived too long". He knows he has to change because this Doctor is too dark and willing to cross the line. He makes peace with it, almost. He tells Wilf its an honor to save him and then he gets hit with the radiation.

This scene is particularly amazing because you can see he's in pain, yes, but lots of characters show pain. David Tennant shows the Doctor fighting against the pain. He sort of gets up after the first wave and looks at the door, almost hopeful that he can get out before the radiation gets too strong for even him to handle. Then you can see the hope die as another wave of pain hits and he can't even support himself. He slowly collapses to the floor and then, in the most powerful gesture, curls up. He curls up and grabs his hair. This is perhaps the most vulnerable position of pain I have ever seen. It's broadcasting the pain so much better than just a grimace or tense body. He grabs onto his hair because it hurts so much, he needs a different kind of pain to distract him. It's almost childlike, the position. And then the radiation shuts off and he's still curled up. It still hurts because he just absorbed so much radiation into his body and it is literally killing him, cell by cell. But then he uncurls and gets up anyways. He knows he's dying but is still putting it off.

He held off on regenerating for as long as possible, almost too long, and through all that time, he never showed pain until the end. And then he just needs to get to his TARDIS. He knows that holding it in would make it too strong to be around fragile buildings so he needs to make it into the TARDIS to protect everyone else. He keeps holding his regeneration in to get the TARDIS off earth to make even more sure that he doesn't hurt anyone. And then he knows he can't hold it any longer but he still tries, making it go slowly, and just before he loses control of it, he delivers the final line, "I don't want to go."

This is so sad because he is still holding his composure, even though there is no one there to see him. He's still being brave because he has to be, because he's dying. And he goes away and we are left with someone who is decidedly lighter hearted than the Doctor we just left. This Doctor, already we can see, hasn't lost anyone yet. He's a brand new personality that won't let him get as dark as David Tennant Doctor.

**Author's Note:**

> Drop a review if you liked it or want to scream about David Tennant with me.


End file.
